Right Now...

At the moment, I'm shooting quite excessively in order to try and refine my 'style' of photography. I feel like I have something going at the moment, yet I feel the need to be consistent with my outcomes - My self-portraits differ from my normal work with a team and I'm not completely sure why that differs in the first place. Perhaps environments matter? And if they do, why? Why do my surroundings impact the outcome of my work?

Well at the beggining, my self-portraits were taken purely in my bedroom or outdoors around my local area. I guess these two places/environments were places I was comfortable with and knew what to expect. Majority of these times I was alone, by myself to create whatever I wanted - it was both relaxing and natural to me. However, I decided to break out of my comfort zone and branch out into different scenarios and environments.

First, I shot some self-portraits with Evie Smith, a makeup artist I work closely with and she basically let me shoot in her living room whilst she poured talcom powder over my head as I triggered the release; Although at first I thought I was be overly self-concious of the way I looked/appeared to Evie whilst taking them, but that naturally left my mind once I was tied up with the process of taking the images. I would normally do makeup myself, yet having Evie is work her magic was even better, as we both got to focus on our own work to a higher extent.

Moving on swiftly after that shoot, I then decided to shoot within the universities studio - a huge space with everything you already need within it. I felt silly almost, that it's taken me this long to throw myself into the studio on my own. Although that was the case, it didn't really feel abnormal - I had the whole space to myself including privacy (Making yourself look good for self-portraits can be unappealing) so this was an added bonus. The process was, again, very familiar: it felt like I was in my bedroom again doing the same routine. This bubble only burst once I walked out the door, back into the 'real' world.

The university studios did give me a drawn back look, further than my normal self-portraits which I actually liked, yet wanted to move onto different shots rather than myself.

With the next shoot, the team consisted of myself, Evie (MUA), Victoria (Model) and Vikki (Stylist) - we wanted to work on a theme which was "Where The Wild Things Are" - we esculated that idea into a fashion shoot. The lighting and atmosphere created within this shoot turned out to be amazing, in my eyes anyway - as I'm always aiming for this dark, slightly depressing vibe when structuring the lighting. The styles that were presented on the shoot had an underlying darkness too - the use of sequins and bold prints helped carry these images into a dramatic photograph rather than simply a dark one.

I feel like all of these photographs carry something different from set to set - I loved the last shoot purely because it wasn't myself (obviously) and full body portraits were something I hadn't really built upon until now. So, with that in mind I'll probably continue shooting in this way - yet I haven't found out the reason for different outcomes in different environments. When I know, I'll let you know...